New ride: The Jakarta Transportation Cooperative (Kopaja) has procured 200 new buses to be managed by city-owned bus operator PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta), as part of efforts to overhaul public transportation in the capital city. (JP/Dewanti A. Wardhani)

After signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
with the Kopaja bus operator, the Jakarta city administration is now
working for the
improvement of their services. They are together trying to improve the
quality and safety of the services.

'Public
transportation in Jakarta should be safer and more comfortable. Therefore, we
should continue to improve public transportation services,'
said Jakarta City Transportation Agency head Andri Yansyah on Friday.

PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta), the Jakarta City
Transportation Agency and Kopaja bus operator on Wednesday signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) to operate buses serving the Manggarai-Blok M route, known in
South Jakarta as the S66 route.

Currently, Kopaja operates 80 buses on the S66 route.

'We have made another step in an effort to improve the service
of Kopaja buses after the MoU signing,' said Andri

Under the agreement, the city administration will replace the medium-sized buses with large buses as big as
those operated along Transjakarta lanes, according to Andri.

'The number of buses will be decreased to 40 if the buses
are replaced with the big ones. All the big buses will be operated along
Transjakarta sub-routes,' Andri explained.

The MoU also ruled that the Kopaja bus operators had to
agree with the new payment system of rupiah-per-kilometer. (nov/bbn)